What really happened at this year's Allen & Co. Media and Technology conference?

The Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference is underway in Sun Valley, Idaho. A parade of moguls, executives, entrepreneurs and business personalities are on site to talk behind closed doors and maybe make a few deals. But even though many of them are among the best-known business figures today, they have to adhere to one rule: wear a name-tag.

Click through see an updated collection of who is attending the most prestigious conference of the summer.

The UpTake: Another Allen & Co. conference has wrapped. And again, we're left with very little in the way of concrete news out of the exclusive and secretive event. The biggest headline so far: speculation about an AOL-Yahoo hookup.

H ere's what we learned—or, more accurately given the fact that the conference was off-limits to working reporters—what we think we learned from last week's Allen & Co. Media and Technology conference in Sun Valley, Idaho:

Merger bells for Yahoo and AOL—Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and AOL's Tim Armstrong talking over drinks late in the night on Thursday got lots of people speculating that Armstrong wanted to sell his company to Mayer. Both execs spent time at Google before taking over their respective companies, so their talk may have been a bunch of reminiscing. But as the Wall Street Journal points out, a marriage of the two isn't the worst idea.

The Rupert Murdoch watch—Heading into last week, the most intriguing story line was to see if the News Corp. and 21st Century Fox chairman was angling to buy Time Warner. While Murdoch was there, with several of his children who hold senior executive positions in his companies, there was no word of any movement on that front. In a USA Today column today, Michael Wolff breaks down what's at stake for Murdoch and the various factors at play. "One more point: He is 83. Although for almost anyone else, that would argue more for stability and risk-avoidance, for Murdoch, it means he must hurry up," Wolff concludes.

A Page on privacy—Google CEO Larry Page gave a talk on Wednesday where he reportedly talked about privacy. According to a Bloomberg report, Page "made the cast that Google took privacy seriously, and described how the world’s most popular search engine thought about it as a problem to solve, according to people who were there." Bloomberg quoted one person in attendance, an artist named Pride Winkenwerder, who said: “His dedication to protecting the data at his company was visceral ... I thought he was fascinating.”

J. "Josh" Jennings Moss has spent time on the police beat in Florida, on the political trail in Washington, D.C., and on the business front in New York. Among the places he’s journalized: Condé Nast Portfolio, FoxNews.com, ABCNews.com, the Advocate, the Washington Times, and the Tampa Tribune. Josh graduated from the University of Arizona and lives in New York City.

SHARE THIS STORY

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.